Jhimpir Wind Power: Pakistan’s first wind farm gets global recognition

RAWALPINDI: The first wind power generation project in Pakistan has recently been recognised by Project Finance Magazine. The financial magazine, in circulation for the last twenty years, is widely read by financiers, advisers, management consultants, stakeholders managing and developing projects globally and senior government officials.

Turkish-based Zorlu Group showed interest to set up the first wind farm in Pakistan. To turn this into a reality, the company decided to open a subsidiary in Pakistan called Zorlu Energy.

The Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) played a crucial role in helping Zorlu Energy to initiate this project.

The Alternative Energy Development was founded by the government in 2003. The purpose of AEDB was to reduce Pakistan’s dependence on hydro and fossil fuel based power generation by identifying alternative energy resources like wind, solar, biogas and micro based run of the river projects. The other major task of AEDB was to help foreign firms invest in this sector.

AEDB had earlier identified that Pakistan has the wind power potential to generate 50,000MW from this free and clean source of energy. Unfortunately, there was no bankable wind data, the data available with the Met department was not at the required turbine hub height and the banks or the investors were not comfortable by these claims alone. AEDB came up with a novel idea of providing ‘wind risk’ data to the investors, making Pakistan the first country to provide such data.

Zorlu Energy was the first company to move ahead with guarantees and assistance from AEDB in setting up the first wind turbine in Jhimpir area of Sindh. Zorlu Energy is investing $136 million in this pioneer wind farm project.

The Istanbul-based company borrowed $38.1 million from the World Bank’s International Finance Corp., $36.8 million from the Asian Development Bank, $20 million from the Eco Trade & Development Bank and $16.2 million from Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) of Pakistan for the project.

Other investors like Fauji Fertilizer Company, China International Water & Electric Corporation have also keenly followed the progress of this project and have initiated projects in this lucrative new and clean energy generation sector.

In recognition of its wind power project in Pakistan, Zorlu Energy Pakistan has received the “Middle East Renewable Deal of the Year” for 2011 by Project Finance Magazine.

Attaining this prestigious award by Zorlu Energy demonstrates the ease and security of investing in the renewable energy sector in Pakistan.

The government has been late in identifying the potential of free, clean and renewable power sources in the country. In October 2011, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority approved an Rs12.61 per KWh feed-in tariff for foreign financed wind power projects. This tariff has been approved to encourage foreign financiers to invest in this lucrative energy sector in Pakistan.

AEDB is expecting to achieve a target of harnessing renewable energy sources to produce 400MW by the end of this year. The target will be a record in itself as no country has been able to harness 400MW within six years of its first plant

News Details: Express Tribune

Pakistan Exports Talent: Nokia Top Brass Promoted to Regional Heads

Pakistan is considered as highly potential country for its talented human resource; this is particularly valid for telecom sector.

This is also evident from the fact that top level professionals at Nokia Pakistan were recently promoted and shifted to different key level positions in various regions.

Haseeb Ihtisham, Marketing Head of Nokia Pakistan has been promoted to region’s head to look after company’ business in four countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.

Reza Burney, Head of Care at Nokia Pakistan has been designated as Head of Care Near East Region with countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran and Iraq.

Shoaib Kadri has been elevated to Business Controllers Nokia for Near East Region, who also served Nokia in Pakistan under the same capacity.

All these officials were previously working in Pakistan but they were also looking after commercial affairs of Afghanistan through distribution channels.

Arif Shafique, was elevated to the position of Country Manager Pakistan Afghanistan earlier this year, after Khalid Alvi left regional charge of Nokia for personal reasons.

Shafique is also a local talent and has been promoted as head of the organization for his successful performance at Nokia in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Besides, Imran Khalid, who was transferred to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan as Country Manger in June 2011, has also been promoted. He is now Vice President of Near East Region.

Overall, the key officials of Nokia Pakistan and Afghanistan have been recognized as professionally sound and unmatchable in the entire region.

News Details : ProPakistani

NUST Launches Pakistan’s Fastest Supercomputer

National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) inaugurated its fastest supercomputing facility in a ceremony held on Tuesday at its Research Centre for Modeling and Simulation (RCMS).

The supercomputer installed in NUST is the fastest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) based parallel computing system operating in any organization/academic institution in Pakistan till date.

The supercomputer can perform parallel computation at a peak speed of 132 Teraflops (132 Trillion Operations per second).  It is equipped with multi-core processors and graphics co-processors with inter-processor communication speed of 40 Gbps

Techinical Specifications:

Computer’s Cluster configuration:
66 NODE supercomputer with 30,992 processor cores
2 Head Node (16 Processor Cores)
32 Dual Quad Core Computer Nodes (256 Processor Cores)
32 Nvidia Computing Processors
Each processor has 960 Processor Cores (30,720 processor Cores)
QDR Infiniband Interconnection
21.6TB SAN storage

Imaginational ceremony was presided over by Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Javaid Laghari.

Speaking at the ceremony, Principal RCMS Engr Sikandar Hayat highlighted some of the unique features of this state-of-the-art computing facility recently acquired by Nust through financial grant by Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST).

Hayat said that besides the supercomputer’s extensive utilisation in the computation-intensive research projects in the areas of Fluid Dynamics and Biosciences, this massively parallel facility can also be utilized to handle huge data processing applications of social sciences such as Flood and Weather Forecasting, Oil and Gas Exploration, energy efficient building designs and national transportation management.

Addressing the event, Laghari appreciated the efforts of the entire team associated with the project and encouraged all institutions to come forward and benefit from the facility acquired by Nust. He assured HEC’s full support in this regard.

Rector Nust Engr Muhammad Asghar, in his welcome address, sharing his vision, specifically mentioned that the acquisition of the supercomputing facility would be a source of inspiration for PhD scholars, abroad, to return to Pakistan.

“This will give an impetus for collaborative research between universities and other research organizations within the country and abroad.”

Dr Imran Akhtar, the key note speaker, gave a highly motivating and thought provoking speech on the occasion, encouraging young researchers to come forward and utilize the facility in solving national challenges in the areas of engineering, bio-informatics, political science, psychology and social sciences.

News Details:  Pro Pakistani

PACPAD: An Android Tablet by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex

You might have already heard by now. Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) has manufactured the (not really) first Android tablet in Pakistan – the PACPAD 1. Not just this product, Pakistan’s air force complex has also launched their own version of a netbook and an e-book reader.

PACPAD is a joint venture between PAC and Chinese manufacturers to boost the local economy and provide low-cost solutions to consumers. These tablets are manufactured at an air force base in Kamra in northern Pakistan.

The product has received mixed reviews. Apart from appreciations to PAC on launching a local product, many have objected on why is PAC making consumer electronics where as it should be defending our air spaces.

We haven’t tried out the PACPAD yet, so can’t really comment on the performance and usability of the tablet. Hoping if Pakistan Air Force would send us a unit so we can bring you videos and more photos of this Android tablet!

PACPAD 1 Price and Specifications

PACPAD 1 costs Rs. 15,500 ($170) and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. A complete specifications list can be found below:

You can buy this tablet from a shop in Rawalpindi or order it online from PAC’s website.

PACPAD Display Centers

Kamra
PAC Commissary, ARF PAC Kamra

Rawalpindi
Mobile Plus: Shop No. 15, Singapore Plaza, Bank Road, Saddar, Rawalpindi.
Phone: +92 (51) 5110 007

NOTE: Currently, PACPAD is being displayed and sold at Rawalpindi and Kamra offices only.

More Details: Android Pakistan

Pakistan Military to Manufacture Handheld Tablets

Pakistan Military is reportedly in process of developing a handheld tablet, a market dominated by the likes of Apple, Amazon and Samsung, reported Express Tribune the other day.

A rather surprising report said that the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) Kamra has started up a new commercial venture with a Chinese company to manufacture smart tablets to strengthen national economy.

It is said that venture may produce several products starting with a computing tablet, a notebook and an eBook reader.

Details suggest that products are initially being marketed in Rawalpindi, but modalities needed to be finalized so it could expand to other cities including Lahore and Karachi.

The competitively priced products, he said, have several benefits because they are being manufactured in Kamra.

“It comes with a joint one-year warranty of PAC and Innavtek. Because PAC is producing it, it will ensure quality. We will also provide backup support,” the official said an official.

Update:

Okay we have got this information, according to which there are two devices (a tablet and e-reader) available for sale. Notebook will be made available in March 2012. Keep reading for more details:

E-Reader: PAC Pad1

• Portable eBook Reader
• 7” TFT Screen
• 480 x 800 Resolution
• 10 Hours Battery time
• Media supported: AVI, MKV, MP4, MP3, PDF, EPUB
• DRM Compliance
• USB Connector
• Price: Rs. 8500

Tablet: PAC eBook 1

• 1 GHz processor
• 7” Capacitive Multi-touch screen
• 1920 x 1280 resolution
• WiFi 802.11 b/g
• 256 MB Ram
• 5 Hours Battery time
• Android 2.3.3
• 4 GB NAND Flash included
• External SD Card upto 32 GB
• Price: Rs. 15,500

Notebook: PAC nBook1

• 11” Screen
• 1920 x 1280 resolution
• WiFi 802.11 b/g
• 1.33 Ghz processor
• 1 GB ram
• 5 Hours battery time
• 120 GB hard disk
• HDMI support
• Price: Rs. 25,500

PAC claims that all products are co-produces and assembled locally, and are sold after quality assurance.

All products come with 1 year warranty.

Where to Buy:

Currently these products are available at PAC Kamra, however, PAC is making arrangements to make these products available in open market, throughout Pakistan.

News details: ProPakistani

Pakistan’s Babar Iqbal sets new record in the field of Digital Forensic Science

Babar Iqbal, a 14 year old whiz kid from Dera Ismail Khan, has set a world record by publishing his first research paper on digital forensic science. The field of Digital Forensic Science covers the recovery and investigation of data in digital devices and is often used to aid computer crime investigations.

Babar’s research pertains to Apple iDevices (iPad, iPhone, iPod) and has been accepted by the 8th IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Information Technology. He has been invited to present his research at the conference as well.

What sets his method apart is that it doesn’t require jailbreaking and can image an iDevice in less than 30 minutes.

Jailbreaking is gaining illegal root access to iOS, Apple’s operating system, through use of custom kernels. Devices which run iOS include the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. On a jailbroken device, one could download application, themes and other stuff that is unavailable through the official Apple store.

This new method can aid law enforcement agencies in retrieving digital forensic evidence present on the phone including contacts, texts, all multimedia items as well as GPS info and Cellphone tower logs which can triangulate location of device at certain point in time.

This isn’t the first time Babar has been in the spotlight, a programmer since the age of 5, he became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) as well as the youngest Certified Internet Web Professional (CIWA) at the age of nine.

He then went on to become the youngest Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA), youngest Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) and youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in .NET 3.5 at the age of 10, 11 and 12 respectively.

Babar is currently in Dubai, where he is training and working with Microsoft. The links for his website and Students Café, his initiative to create awareness about Information Technology in Pakistan and around the world at all levels of education, are given below:

• http://www.babariqbal.com/
• http://www.students-cafe.com/

News Details: ProPakistani.Pk

Pakistan has developed smartest nuclear tactical devices

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s nuclear programme has made some extraordinary progress by developing one of the world’s smartest nuclear tactical devices, it has been learnt.

According to a western diplomat, the former dictator and the then President General Pervez Musharraf, during one of his meetings with US officials, had deemed it proper to convey it to the Americans what Pakistan possessed and how the country’s nuclear scientists had secured the defence of Pakistan.

The diplomatic source said that New Delhi also knows what Pakistan has produced and what is really unmatched. The Indians got this source said and believed that Musharraf intentionally conveyed this to the Americans so that the country is not treated by the US like Afghanistan and Iraq Pakistan is neither a signatory to NPT nor CTBT, however, it has unilaterally decided to use its nuclear programme only as deterrence against any foreign aggression.

After becoming the target of the Western capitals particularly Washington, which have been unleashing all sorts of propaganda against Pakistan’s nuclear programme, Islamabad has developed one of the most credible and foolproof command and control systems for its nuclear programme. The US authorities have acknowledged the credibility and security of Pakistan’s nukes.

Wikipedia quotes a Washington-based science think tank as saying that Pakistan is increasing its capacity to produce plutonium at its Khushab nuclear facility. The website said that the estimated Pakistani nuclear weapons was probably in the neighbourhood of more than 200 by the end of 2009.

It, however, adds that the actual size of Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile is hard for experts to gauge owing to the extreme secrecy, which surrounds the programme. Pakistan’s nuclear programme was started by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto while the country conducted its nuclear test on May 28, 1998 during Nawaz Sharif’s tenure.

News Details: Geo